Chemo 101

March 25 was my first day of chemotherapy. I’m assuming many of you have been fortunate and not had to go through chemo but may be curious as to what is involved. I definitely had no idea and associated it with sickly looking thin patients who were stuck in bed for months. The Dying Young movie came to mind for me. Fortunately for many cancers (including breast) that is not the case and other than losing one’s hair most would have no idea someone is going through it. The good thing is they load you up with anti-nausea drugs so no time are spent hugging the toilet. My special chemo cocktail for April–June is Adriamycin and Cytoxan and I’ll receive it via my port every other week. Then I’ll have weekly low doses of Taxol (chemo) and Herceptin (non-chemo) June-September. I’ll lose my hair with Adriamycin/Cytoxan but it will grow back while I am on the Taxol…phew. So what happens while you are receiving chemo? Swedish has a nice set-up and you sit in a lounge chair with a blanket and are hooked up to the IV. First they administer the anti-nausea drugs and one of them makes you sleepy/spacey. Forget about getting some reading time in. That takes about an hour and then they add the Cytoxan which runs for 30-60 minutes. Then I go home with the Adriamycin connected to me via a plastic tube that slowly goes into my system over the next 24 hours. The following day I was a little tired and felt the worse on Sunday (day 4) which is typical. I feel like I’ve sailed through the first round so let’s hope the remaining are not too bad. I’m eating well, sleeping 8-10 hours a night and exercising everyday so all of that has to help! The one thing I cannot have during chemo is wine…darn it. Oh well, I went without it during pregnancy so I can do it again. We’ll use the opportunity to stock up our wine cellar. Wish me luck on the next round April 8!!